There was a very low level of cyberintelligence, even at agencies that ought to have been very seriously involved, who were responsible for protecting the country, its electrical grid, its telecommunications.

"The IP addresses used to launch the attacks are known to be associated with previous attacks from groups that are either directly employed agents of the Chinese state or amateur hackers that are proxies for them that have attacked other U.S. companies in the past," said Eli Jellenc, head of international cyberintelligence at iDefense.

The hackers directed the attacks on the companies through six Internet addresses linked to servers in Taiwan, which sent commands to targeted computers in the firms, said Eli Jellenc, head of international cyberintelligence for the Silicon Valley-based cybersecurity research and forensics firm Verisign iDefense, which is helping companies investigate the penetrations.